Before college, I only had one Black male teacher. His name was Mr. Wingate and he taught Computer Applications in twelfth grade. He didn’t teach me anything profound, since Microsoft products don’t lend themselves to intellectual depth or deep revelations, but he made an impression.

If I’ve done the math correctly, out of the fifty or so teachers I’ve had in my lifetime, only two or three of them were men of Black or Latino descent. For someone who was born and raised in New York City, that’s staggering.

America’s Leaky Pipeline for Teachers of Color

If you spend time in almost any major school district in America today, you will notice that the students often do not look much like the teachers. In fact, in some areas, the students don’t look anything like their teachers. There is a significant demographic gap in the largely white teaching profession and an increasingly diverse student population.

Teacher Diversity Revisited

In the fall of 2011, the Center for American Progress released an issue brief looking at teacher diversity, and the findings were stark. We found that the demographics of the teacher workforce had not kept up with student demographics. In that study, we showed that students of color made up more than 40 percent of the school-age population. In contrast, teachers of color were only 17 percent of the teaching force.

Over centuries, suggestions have ranged from genetic unworthiness to lack of marriage among their parents to a "culture of poverty" and inability to delay gratification. Maybe they are poor because they speak a kind of language that "has no rules at all" (not true), or maybe because they don't have books in their houses. Maybe it's because they don't eat dinner together every night. Maybe being bilingual has stunted their intellect. (All these have been discredited, following a period of popularity.)

Cultural Diversity and Language Socialization in the Early Years

Eunjin Park, New York University & Kendall King, Georgetown University

Children become linguistically and culturally competent members of their community through interactions with caregivers and other more competent members of their community (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1984; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). Through this language socialization, children learn the behaviors that are culturally appropriate in their community (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986).

As a culturally and linguistically diverse student population is, or will soon be, the norm in most U.S. schools, developing an understanding of the ways that children are socialized at home is increasingly important. Many children bring to school not only a new language, but also cultural ways of using language that differ from those of mainstream school culture (Heath, 1983; Zentella, 1997). These differences can lead teachers to underestimate or misinterpret the competence of students. In order for all students to have equal opportunities for educational success, teachers must be aware not only of what children need to learn, but

Status Quo at Elite New York Schools: Few Blacks and Hispanics

Seven black students have been offered a chance to start classes at Stuyvesant High School in September, two fewer than received offers last year. For Hispanics, the number has dropped to 21 from 24.

According to data released on Tuesday, the racial demographics for incoming students at eight of the city’s nine specialized schools, where black and Hispanic students have long been underrepresented, has remained stagnant, prompting Mayor Bill de Blasio to call again for increasing diversity at the schools.